Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and robust cytokine storm are the hallmark of severe COVID-19 cases. Using single-cell RNA sequencing of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, this preprint study from Liao et al. found that the depletion of tissue-resident alveolar macrophages and the accumulation of monocyte-derived inflammatory macrophages associate with disease severity. Inflammatory macrophages adopted interferon-signalling and monocyte-recruiting chemokine programmes that may drive ARDS. Increased clonal expansion of CD8+ T cells was found in mild cases; this may reflect viral clearance due to the induction of virus-specific cytotoxic T cells, as is seen in influenza virus infection. Overall, these data support therapeutic strategies that target the myeloid cell compartment, such as IL-6 inhibitors, to treat COVID-19-associated inflammation.
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Original article
Liao, M. et al. The landscape of lung bronchoalveolar immune cells in COVID-19 revealed by single-cell RNA sequencing. Preprint at medRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.02.23.20026690 (2020)
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Salomé, B., Magen, A. Dysregulation of lung myeloid cells in COVID-19. Nat Rev Immunol 20, 277 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41577-020-0303-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41577-020-0303-8
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